NPR NOTES

Commentary by Mayor Rob Marlowe

  • Home
  • About the Mayor
  • Get NPR Notes By Email

Archives for April 2014

FCAT Fiasco

April 23, 2014 By Rob Marlowe

robspic

As I write this, we are in the second full week of the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Tests or FCATs as they are commonly known.  If you count the pretests done a week before the FCATs started, we are actually into week three of four straight weeks of testing for Florida students.  Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?

First and foremost, I see absolutely no sense in having students spend a month in testing.  This is time that is not available for learning.  Add to this month all the OTHER testing that is done during the school year and you start to see how we have turned the process of education on its head, all in the name of accountability.

Pearson, Inc., the company handling the online FCAT testing for Florida, apparently had a computer glitch yesterday that prevented students in a number of counties from completing the day’s testing.

Online testing assumes that EVERYTHING works perfectly:  The computers used for the tests, the proctor cache computers that cache the tests at each school, each school’s internal computer network, each school’s connection to the Internet, Pearson’s connection to the Internet, and Pearson’s servers themselves.  Break any one of these, and the tests crash.  The entire system is no better than the weakest link.

If you are computing locally, a loss of Internet connectivity is not the end of the world.  If you are depending on a remote host and either  you or the remote host experiences connectivity problems, you are out of business for the duration.  I’ve advised my clients to go slow on transitioning to cloud services for exactly this reason.

I believe two things need to happen in Florida:

First, we need to consider going back to paper and number two lead pencils.  Computer scanned tests worked well in the 60’s and 70’s when I was in school and they still work.  We hold our elections using optically scanned ballots and they seem to work just fine.

Secondly, we need to completely rethink what we are doing to our children by scheduling weeks on end of standardized tests, regardless of the technology we use for those tests.

I’m all for holding teachers and schools accountable for their part in educating our children, but we seem to have gone overboard with the current testing scheme.

What do you think?

 

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek
Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.

(Rob’s comments here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulfcoast Networking, Inc., or the City of New Port Richey.)

Filed Under: Local Commentary

Next Page »

My Day Job

When I'm not doing mayor stuff, I spend my time at Gulfcoast Networking. I solve Internet issues, clean up infected computers, and build websites. I'm always happy to take a break from computers to talk about New Port Richey's future, so feel free to come by my office at 6335 Grand Blvd to chat.

Recent Posts

  • What is Truth? January 10, 2021
  • Merry Christmas December 25, 2020
  • EV Update November 5, 2020
  • Beta Testing On A Global Scale September 22, 2020
  • Doing Business in a COVID-19 World July 10, 2020
  • Defund The Police? June 23, 2020
  • What To Say June 19, 2020
  • Setting The Stage For The Future May 10, 2020
  • Beltane May 1, 2020
  • Earth Day at 50: Not Just For Tree Huggers Anymore. April 22, 2020

Recent Comments

  • David Prace on What is Truth?
  • Marilynn deChant on What is Truth?
  • Ray Calvert on What is Truth?
  • Katherine G Logue on What is Truth?
  • Kenneth L Houghtaling on What is Truth?
  • Jim Julian on What is Truth?
  • Rob Marlowe on Merry Christmas
  • Rick Bailey on Merry Christmas
  • Alexander on Merry Christmas
  • Marjorie Boyd on Merry Christmas

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Copyright © 2021 · Rob Marlowe · Log in